


57 is when life is just beginning!

by mandalora



Series: TheRisingValkyrie's modern au [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: A little bit of angst, HAPPY END!!!!, M/M, Old Men In Love, Translation, police officer!Corvo, questionable morality, retired!Daud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26054347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandalora/pseuds/mandalora
Summary: Modern!AU:Retired hitman falling for a mute police officer—Daud’s luck can only be envied.
Relationships: Corvo Attano/Daud
Series: TheRisingValkyrie's modern au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891369
Comments: 10
Kudos: 70





	57 is when life is just beginning!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheRisingValkyrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRisingValkyrie/gifts).
  * A translation of [В 57 жизнь только начинается!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18786694) by [TheRisingValkyrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRisingValkyrie/pseuds/TheRisingValkyrie). 



> **T/N:** Thank you, TheRisingValkyrie, for letting me put my screaming over your works to good use

_‘I’m never drinking with you again,’_ stated Billie’s text message. Daud cringed and pressed the cold mug to his temple. The phone screen’s light was slashing at his eyes.

 _‘You never complained before,’_ he sent back.

 _‘And you never flirted with police officers,’_ she said, and Daud choked on air. Yes, it seemed he’d had one too many after all. Thinking was difficult. So was remembering.

 _‘So what?’_ he responded. _‘What’s so criminal about that?’_

Billie sent a smirking emoji in response. Daud snorted and went back to the bed. 

_‘You gave him your number,’_ she continued. _‘And also he’s mute, but you had no problem communicating in the shared language of drunken gestures.’_

Daud chortled and then moved his head at an unfortunate angle—it immediately responded with pulsating pain.

_‘I don’t even remember what he looks like.’_

Billie replied with a picture labeled _‘an old man, just like you.’_ The picture showed him standing with a man of the same height: the man’s hand was on Daud’s elbow, he seemed to be smiling. The photo came out blurry due to the low light, so it was difficult to properly make anything out.

He lay back down. It was only five in the morning, the room was still dark with the hour of predawn, and he could barely keep his eyes open. Dropping the phone on the pillow next to himself, Daud lowered his eyelids and stilled like that.

He woke up from the phone’s notification signal, heaved a sigh, and peeled his eyes open. His head didn’t hurt all that much anymore, though his temples still ached. He blindly fumbled for the phone, got ahold of it, and squinted at the screen.

 _‘Good afternoon,’_ said the text from an unknown number. Disgruntled, Daud glanced at the time. Sure enough—afternoon. _‘We drank together in the bar last night.’_

Ah, this was probably that police officer from the picture. Daud set his phone down to get the light away from his eyes, lowered his eyelids and focused to the best of his ability. The picture helped to remember the officer drinking, smiling, and licking his lips, but his memory was very intently hiding the man’s name.

Daud sighed with the thought that the officer might not even reply after this (judging by the way he was forming sentences, he wasn’t all that hungover), but typed out honestly:

_‘I drank too much last night. I don’t really remember your name.’_

_‘Corvo.’_

Corvo put a period at the end. Billie always said that was a bad sign.

 _‘But that’s not what you called me last night,’_ came the continuation, and Daud loudly choked on his saliva. Perhaps it was somewhere in that moment that he decided that this was plainly his fate.

*

Daud was old enough to be able to equate late-night meetups in bars with dates of dreams.

Putting off life’s simple joys until retirement may not have been the best of ideas, but was there really reason to complain now.

Corvo smiled and pushed him to the wall. Daud had to strain to suppress the reflex developed over years of work: Corvo squeezed his shoulders with unexpectedly strong hands and he wanted to lurch with all his might in order to switch places and snatch the advantage.

Daud did not remember when last he had been pressed against a wall with the aim of being kissed instead of killed. In fact, that probably had never even happened in the first place.

It was difficult, but Daud willed himself to let go of his tension.

His last memory involving walls wasn’t pleasant: he’d been forced against uneven brick and then took a knife between his ribs, narrowly missing a lung by some miracle.

In general, Daud was lucky. No matter how hard they tried to break him, they just couldn’t hit his vital organs.

Corvo, though, seemed the first to succeed. Otherwise his heart wouldn’t be pounding right there in the throat, making it hard to breathe, and his innards wouldn’t be burning up so much. And his knees wouldn’t be bucking as if he were fifteen, and not near sixty.

Corvo ran hot, alcohol still perceptible on his lips, and Daud loosened up, letting himself relax, allowing himself that which he never allowed himself with anyone. He was too distrustful of life and others: at times he even couldn’t sleep when Billie was in the same apartment with him, and she was the only one he allowed himself to deem trustworthy.

And now Corvo, his lips on his neck and big hands on his ribs.

“Not very seemly of us to be huddling in nooks at our age, don’t you think?” his voice was hoarse, so Daud was whispering. Corvo laughed, the sound sent goosebumps slinking over Daud’s arms. Corvo lifted his head, stepping back a bit, and shrugged. It could mean literally anything, but he was in no hurry to explain, so it probably didn’t even matter.

They spent the rest of the night at Daud’s place, and Corvo left very late, beaming a drunken smile.

Afterwards, Daud scrolled through Billie’s texts, and, to the last _‘you there?’_ replied honestly:

_‘I had a date.’_

Billie immediately sent several yellow smirks. Her phone never seemed to leave her hands—how ever did she manage to get any work done with an addiction like that.

*

Corvo had a daughter. She was twenty-five, her name was Emily, and she communicated with her father in sign language even though he could hear and she speak. Hands moved so quickly they rippled in Daud’s eyes. The relationship they had was near ideal. Perhaps it merely seemed so from the outside, but not without sadness Daud recalled how about fifteen years ago Billie had stabbed him between the ribs—and after that they hadn’t talked for a year and a half.

Maybe it simply could not be any other way with their occupation, but it had taken going through that whole relationship crisis and moving out into separate apartments for them to stop fighting.

Emily came to pick Corvo up a couple of times when he was too drunk to get home on his own (mute people slurred their gestures instead of speech), and several times called Daud over for tea.

Daud caved in after the fifth invitation.

Corvo had four sharks from IKEA at home, and Daud found that he had a habit of sitting with them laid out around himself. Emily joked that it was his personal stress relief therapy. 

Life seemed unexpectedly normal from this angle. Like in romantic comedies where there was no place for murders and constant flitting between nearby cities; where the worst injury one could get was a paper cut, a tongue bite, or a scald from hot tea.

*

_‘What happened to you?’_ Corvo asked. He was typing with one hand while his second was on Daud’s patched-up knee, thumb brushing lightly over the skin.

“Got into an accident,” Daud lied, recalling how painful it was to take several bullets in the leg and then fall from a height of three stories. “A long time ago, just flared up a bit with age.”

_‘Does it hurt?’_

“Sometimes, with the weather. Not too bad.”

Daud used to use a cane, gifted to him by Billie, and he’d griped at first, and then found that there was a blade hidden inside. Just in case. Now, the cane was buried somewhere in the storeroom. 

The moment Corvo appeared in his life (and apartment), Daud had to hide all his weaponry. The knives and guns he owned were a houseful. They had even been shoved between the cushions in the couch, in the gap between his bed’s mattress and headboard. Simply put, knives were literally everywhere, on every shelf, but had to be hidden away. Somehow, Corvo found two (one with a hilt in disgusting pink with kittens on it, sent by Billie from somewhere in China, and the other a weighty thing with a rounded blade), and Daud lied that he was just collecting. For validity’s sake, he showed Corvo a few more. An innocent enough hobby—there were worse things one could collect, and in any case Corvo believed him without question. And yet Daud was still on edge.

*

At times it was very nice to get with Billie and chat over a few bottles. If only that didn’t include the Outsider, their mutual informant, and now also Billie’s partner.

“How’re your dates?” Billie teased. Daud let out a heavy sigh and popped a cigarette into his mouth. The place was already full of smoke. He didn’t want to talk to them about Corvo. Especially not with the Outsider.

“Daud,” the Outsider snickered, “one can only envy your luck.”

“Shut up,” Daud grumbled in reply. Bickering with him was the last thing he wanted right now. “Billie, get him away from me.”

Billie snorted from the couch, blowing out smoke.

“Outsider’s right,” she said, and Daud shot her an unkind look.

“Traitor,” he huffed.

“Your relationship with Attano is a hell of a joke,” Billie continued. Daud didn’t even get a chance to bristle when the Outsider butted in:

“A retired hitman and a mute police officer walk into a bar...”

“You told him?” Daud griped, throwing a pillow at Billie. She caught it easily in her prosthetic hand. The Outsider gave a proud whistle.

“Works well, huh,” he said. In response, Billie rotated her hand the full three hundred and sixty degrees. Daud cringed.

“Why the hell are you telling him about my relationship with my—”

“Old man,” the Outsider suggested. Billie snorted. Daud shot them both the strongest glare of indignation he could muster.

*

Daud looked at his phone, the screen beaming a message from the Outsider, and he suddenly felt so stupid.

His heart dropped, clenched, and prickles stung somewhere behind it.

He willed himself to take a breath.

“Corvo,” Daud slowly said, forcing the sounds. Corvo looked back at him with an utterly feral medley of emotions in his eyes. He looked like he could walk out the window if he were kept from the door. “Corvo, let’s just take a deep breath, alright?”

Corvo made a prolonged sound suspiciously resembling words, but couldn’t pronounce anything coherent. That angered him, he threw up his hands, and Daud barely understood half of the gestures.

There was seemingly something along the lines of _‘are you kidding,’ ‘what the hell,’ ‘I don’t understand,’ ‘what the fuck’_ and more of the sort.

Daud could have stopped him. He could have pulled a knife or a gun, the house was chock-full of well-hidden weapons.

Instead, he let Corvo leave.

The door shut with a slam, a horrible silence flooded into the apartment and Daud froze, listening. His ears didn’t even ring.

Half an hour later Daud began bombarding him with texts, but it didn’t help. Corvo did not respond, and at a certain point stopped reading altogether.

What to do, Daud had no idea. He was blazing inwardly with anger at himself and the stupid Outsider with his stupid habit of sending messages of utmost dubiousness straight to his main cell. Dad had told him a hundred times: no. He would not be involved in hitjobs any longer, he was old, and he needed rest. And still the moron continued barraging him with offers from clients. 

Daud thought he’d need to leave the city. Move, as soon as possible, before the police showed up at his door. Corvo could give him up, after all.

The first time Daud thought of this, he found that he couldn’t care less. 

He brewed this thought for several days, tying himself into knots, and, of course, told neither the Outsider nor Billie about any of this. To Billie’s texts he replied drily, the Outsider he kept sending straight to hell.

He knew that he had to tell them. He had placed not only himself at risk, but his daughter as well. And the Outsider... to hell with him, he could always get away with anything.

Daud kept wearing himself out like this for a few more days, eating himself away with constant tension and glancing sadly at the IKEA shark that Corvo had left on the couch.

He felt like such an idiot. It had been so stupid to think that, after everything he’d done, his past would let him off the hook and let him live, without thinking about that which regular people only saw in movies.

He did not leave his house this whole time, probably hoping that the world would disappear if he ignored it.

When the doorbell rang, Daud started, frozen in strain. When the ringing got more insistent, he grabbed a knife and went to open up.

At the door was Corvo, and Daud stared at him practically in horror; his innards clenched painfully, needles prickled somewhere behind his heart. He managed to hide the knife behind his back in time. Corvo shouldered past him, stepping into the apartment in sullen silence. Daud closed the door behind him, noting the glint of alarm in Corvo’s eyes. 

_‘I’m completely calm,’_ Corvo informed. He looked broken, and Daud was anxious. Corvo indeed no longer looked like he was about to run off to the other side of the city or country, only that didn’t make Daud feel any better.

“You sure?”

Corvo threw him and unkind look, then went into the room where he at once collapsed into an armchair.

Daud bit on his tongue and let out a sigh, going after him. He tossed the knife on the table, Corvo followed it with a nervous glance, and Daud lowered himself heavily into the chair on the opposite side, dragging his hands over his face.

The fact that he came back must mean something, right?...

“Corvo, I... I realize that this is difficult to... accept. And understand. But I don’t do this anymore. I’m, sort of, retired.”

_‘Sort of?’_

Daud nearly asked not to nitpick words, but once again bit his tongue.

He sighed heavily and forced himself to say:

“I really don’t want to lose you.”

Corvo changed in the face. Then moved his head, hiding his eyes.

Daud suddenly thought that any possible excuse would sound so stupid and inconsequential that it was better not to even try.

“So let’s not do anything rash?”

Corvo laughed curtly and looked at him. His eyes showed heavy, stifling bitterness.

_‘How many have you killed?’_

“Can we not talk about this?” Daud leaned back stiffly in his seat and Corvo tilted his head to the side. “You don’t want to know.”

_‘I do.’_

Daud closed his eyes and counted to ten in three different languages.

“A lot.”

_‘Does the job pay well?’_

Corvo was asking questions with signs, there was no tone of voice to be found here, and yet Daud thought that he felt the acidity and the desire to wound (or self-defend) in the air.

“Yes. Seriously, let’s not talk about this.”

Corvo pursed his lips and jerked his head. He was silent for a very long time, staring somewhere at the floor, closing up, hiding, and Daud let out a heavy breath.

Fine.

Fine, he had lost before. It wasn’t all that difficult to bear.

Probably.

Daud rose from his chair and immediately regretted the abrupt motion: pain shot through his knee and he swore under his breath, nearly stumbling. Corvo unfroze: Daud gathered this from the creak of furniture, and then the sound of footsteps, but couldn’t will himself to turn around.

His chest burned for some reason.

Corvo had always been impossible. And he stayed so: he pressed against Daud from behind, grabbed him so that it was hard to breathe (or perhaps that was because he wanted to scream), locked his hands together across the stomach and froze with his forehead against the other’s shoulder.

Daud froze as well.

He was going to die now.

“I hope this isn’t you trying to choke me out,” he forced out with heaps of effort, and his voice traitorously slipped down into a whisper.  
Corvo moved his lips, letting out something suspiciously resembling _shut up._

Then he unclenched his hands and stepped back, letting Daud turn around and face him. Corvo looked lost and worried, and yet he was the first to move in closer and place his palms on Daud’s neck, without pressing, though Daud almost wanted to be strangled. 

“What, just like that?” Daud asked, barely audible. Corvo gave him an unfavorable look and didn’t respond. Instead he kissed him, knocking the air out of his lungs.

Daud couldn’t wrap his mind around it. This wasn’t normal, but he liked it.

“Corvo, you’re impossible,” the words tore out of their own accord in a quiet whisper, and Corvo gave a pained chuckle. “I’m worse, I know.”

Corvo laughed, and then suddenly grew serious and raised his hands.

 _‘I have a suggestion,’_ he conveyed. Daud licked his lips and nodded.

“I’m interested,” he forced out.

 _‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’_ Corvo began, and this part Daud already liked, _‘but now we’ll make a pillow fort and not speak.’_

“Deal,” Daud agreed at once. He wasn’t currently capable of long coherent sentences. Corvo nodded and slipped into the bedroom, without saying anything else and without delay. Daud let out a whistling sigh. His heart pummeled in his throat and his hands had gone unpleasantly cold with worry.

Corvo had such good ideas at times, it was actually surprising.

Daud hurried after him, quickly pulled off his shirt and caught Corvo from the back, not touching his hands, knowing how much he disliked it. He pressed his nose into his neck, hungrily took in the scent and fumbled over his chest with cold hands, pulling buttons out of their holes.

“I missed you,” he whispered. Corvo threw back his head and gave a smudged gesture: _‘I missed you too.’_

Daud wanted to howl.

Instead, he put his palm to Corvo’s neck, not pressing, just petting. Corvo liked this. Now, Daud felt him tensing nearly imperceptibly, and his heart dropped.

However, Corvo relaxed very quickly; he placed his hand over Daud’s wrist, stroked the protruding bone and then stepped towards the bed, untangling himself from his arms and taking off his shirt.

Lying with Corvo under the covers and not speaking was great.

Still, Daud felt that something had subtly changed. All the unspoken words and the need to talk hung heavy and stifling between them, blocking out the opportunity to fully relax, but Daud did not want to speak. He only wanted to touch Corvo, to stroke his relaxed face, brushing over the slightly parted lips and the neck where the pulse was beating calmly.

He couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that Corvo still trusted him. Trusted him to a point of lying in bed together with him and letting him touch his neck.

Daud had killed many people in his life by slitting throats, strangling, or just snapping necks.

With Corvo he just stroked, and his fingertips prickled, and his bones ached from how much he’d missed him. Corvo had ignored him for two weeks, and they’d dragged on for an unbearably long time.

Now, Daud could touch him. Pet the warm skin, brush it with his lips, trying intently not to think about the fact that the discussion would be difficult and long and unlikely to lead to anything.

Daud was not a big fan of talking. He’d gotten used to the notion that a lot of problems could be solved with a kill, or with a gun at someone’s forehead.

Here, it did not, and should not work like that.

Daud breathed a lengthy sigh—Corvo blinked sleepily in return, moved in closer, and pulled the blanket over their heads, as if hiding.

*

“Where ever did you vanish for like two weeks?” Billie asked. Daud gave a vague wave of his hand, rising from his armchair and heading into the kitchen.

“Just, had a bit of a falling-out with… my old man.”

“Got work for you,” said the Outsider joyously, having popped up right before him. Daud stared at him grimly. He wanted to sock him in the face, but held back: Billie wouldn’t approve, and would hear from the other room.

“No work,” Daud sighed tiredly.

The Outsider narrowed his eyes and began laying out the details in the best manner he knew: very succinct and laconic, yet engrossing.

“Come on, Daud, say yes,” the Outsider practically purred. “One last little job. My client wants you specifically.”

Daud thought about Corvo. About his smile, about the stupid sharks from IKEA; he remembered his responsiveness and warmth, all his worries, quips, and quirks. He remembered the cold and the revulsion when the truth of his occupation had been uncovered, remembered how hard it had been afterwards and how easy it had gotten to breathe when it had become clear that everything between them would stay the same as before.

“Outsider, go fuck yourself,” Daud concluded. “And take your ‘little job’ with you.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **T/N**  
>  No one:  
> The English language: *adds a whole ass 1k to the original word count*
> 
> Amazing I love it


End file.
